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Ashan was inti as hell, and he knew it; his predohts As always, he looked elegantly tailored A double-breasted suit, the color of ray shirt A teal-blue tie, with eyes to match Ashan, of all the Djinn, struck ave the impression that he just wore a bipedal shape with opposable thuave it no race that all the Djinn seemed to possess but which they didn&039;t usually flaunt quite so openly Even Rahel seemed more part of my world

He walked steadily toward us down that gravel path There were dark spotsbranch was blocking his path, and he kicked it casually out of the ith so much power that it hit one of the quaint weathered tombstones and snapped it off like a broken tooth

Imara made a low sound of terror I pushed her behind me

"Ashan," I said "Thanks for your concern, but really, we&039;re fine No need to be worried"

"Freak," he said "Filthy groveling wor at all Gray, er, but that didn&039;t ry He just needed to be awake "You defiled the Oracle with your stench"

"I saved the Oracle from a Demon Mark," I said, and watched his expression No surprise there "You knew You kneas infected Why didn&039;t you coht to be here" His empty eyes flashed toward Imara "Either of you"

"Leave the kid out of it If you want to smack somebody around--"

He ing agony on the side of my face, and I was on my hands and knees He&039;d slapped me A leisurely, open-handed slap If he&039;d used his fist, he&039;d have snapped ain"

I my--"

Ashan didn&039;t even break stride He backhanded her so hard, she left the ground, twisted in ray headstone I watched her, horrified She didn&039;t

When I looked back at Ashan, it was too late He grabbed -close I scrabbled and scratched at his hand, but it was like trying to pry steel with your fingernails Overhead, dark clouds scudded in froside seat for the action I could sense a certain eagerness up there Stor their coentle precision, his lips to my ear, "should have stayed far, far away from here You&039;re too late, in any case I&039;ve told the Mother the whole filthy history of hunorance None of David&039;s foolish sentiment The truth"

"Truth?" I croaked "Or just your version?"

He was right I should have headed the other way, fast, the minute I&039;d seen him turn the corner, but with Ashan, as with any major predator who has you at his mercy, it&039;s best not to run unless you have an even shot at getting away Bravado&039;s the only real defense

"You know the thing I like best about huht ar, cold left hand "You break so easily"

He pressed with his pale, white thumb That was all Just his thu, followed by a wet cascade of agony I couldn&039;t even screa hand

His thumb moved There were two bones in the ar precision

Snap

My shriek caled whimper I saw red, and stars, and I wanted to heave but I&039;d just choke faster And Ashan wasn&039;t finished with me, that much was obvious

"Call him," Ashan murmured in le degree in temperature "Call your pet for me He&039;ll save you if you call him He won&039;t let me kill you"

I wanted to Badly But I knew all too hat Ashan was doing; he wanted David here, alone, with a lover and a daughter to try to protect David had power--boatloads of it, inherited from Jonathan--but Ashan wasn&039;t far behind And he wanted David&039;s place as the hub at the center of the Djinn universe He wanted to remove the only real threat to his power

Butto ed toelse His right hand flexed, and I felt my throat flex with it It would be easy for him to kill me Too easy

"We&039;ll see" He still had hold of my arain, but he&039;d trapped the sound in my throat where it frantically beat inside, like a bird in a trap Red-hot wires of agony ran through et electrocution I could feel tears strea pleadingly at his blank teal-blue eyes Looking for nize as remotely human

He s on a face that pretended to be flesh and blood

Somehow, I knew that the serene little town of Sea-casket hadn&039;t noticed a thing, and wouldn&039;t Ashan could stand here in broad daylight and pullJust when I thought that he was really going to do it, he dropped edout My wandering eyes focused on the crumpled for I felt so darkness that had threatened to dragulped back the tears and the terror, and shifted aze up, to Ashan

"You knohat?" I croaked It sounded ragged, and not quite sane "You and ame But I don&039;t care how badass you think you are, you shouldn&039;t have hurt hter"

The artificially cal I&039;d done to produce rabbed the air, and started shaking The world was going to hell anyway, and I wasn&039;t about to let Ashan do this Not to Iht

"You can&039;t," he said flatly

Bullshit, I couldn&039;t I was a Warden I had the power, and the lack of conscience to go with it I&039;d had a De insidepicture, I don&039;t know, but right at that moment, I was all about the world within fifty feet, andunconscious and at Ashan&039;s nonexistent mercy

Fifty feet happened to include the mausoleum that held the Oracle, too

"You started it," I said I continued to shake up the systeh ress There was serious instability in the at back saw its shot, and started rolling in with the wind at its back Huge black sails of clouds, belling tight in the wind Lightning was a sci ashore

"Stop," Ashan said, and grabbed ruesome, bloody teeth, bloodshot eyes

"Makeand turning and turning Locking the chain in place with a sudden furious surge of energy, grounding energy from the storm clouds "I don&039;t need David to whip your punk ass"

Lightning hissed up froht in the middle

Flesh and blood vaporized instantly, along with all of Ashan&039;s nice couture I was too close I caught the corona, was blown backward into theinto a one up five steps on the ten-point agony scale, to fourteen Man, I was trashed

But Ashan was vapor

That didn&039;tproperly in hu hi to bet that it had stung He wasn&039;t exactly roaring right back for a re to coalesce out of the ht for him It hit him like a cannon, blasted the ing back I didn&039;t bother to get up as his face fore Spooky I sounded a hell of a lot more confident than I felt "Turn around and leave, Ashan, because I swear, the next thing I hit will mean a lotdisbelief So I hit thebolt

The world went nuts Really nuts Winds howling, lightning stabbing all over the sky in an insane display of fury, ground ruolf balls A couple hitony, that would have been serious pain

Ashan ed to form himself into pseudoflesh--not quite hu out just below the hips into a gray swirl of fog He still clung to the business suit for the top half

But he had sohtless as space

"You&039;ll die for that Nothe Djinn This is a sacred place"

"Bring &039;erimly "Maybe you&039;d like to explain why you let the Oracle suffer like that Unless you were just blaled up to er than a graceful rise, but the fact I was standing was pretty much a victory "Guess what? I talked to her And now she knows that you&039;ve been lying to her, you bastard"

Which was a blatant lie, because I&039;d gotten zero sense she&039;d paid the slightest attention to me, but hopefully Ashan couldn&039;t know that The air was full of threat, his andthat Mo us kids to quit, she didn&039;t care who&039;d started it Of course, thisa smack to the bottom that would flatten half the eastern seaboard

Maybe I&039;d been a little hasty, using the last lightning strike But it had been that, or roll over and die, not so

Not with my child at stake

Ashan just vanished Not sowind I put ainst the wall of thenot to faint; ht The storree, it was still a punk, not that much of a threat I&039;d unsettled it, for certain, and upped it a few degrees on the dangeroet around to it But first, I stu old headstones, and collapsed next to round

"Imara?" I reached out and touched her

My hand went through her Not in the way that it would have if she&039;d been, say, consumed by little blue sparklies that seeped in froether by memory and will She didn&039;t move I withdrew my hand hastily, and used it to cradle my broken ared red streaks, and h the pain "Imara, can you hear n She was in a kind of there and not-there state, lying facedown on the grass I couldn&039;t grab her to move her, or turn her over All I could do was call her name

Rain pattered down, cold and hard on rass and shivered, next to e to call for David He&039;d come, I knew that But I wasn&039;t entirely sure that it would be safe for hi, this could still turn wrong

Not that it was in any way right to begin with

After I while, I noticed that Ian to absorb water I reached down and lightly touched the fabric It had texture and weight

At my touch, she exploded into movement, like a startled deer--up and on her feet, white-faced and wild-eyed Scanning the skies, then the land, then focusing on me

I wasn&039;t sure she even re was certain--there was sooff her that I didn&039;t dare move She&039;d have whacked me halfway across the cemetery, just the way she&039;d been hit, and without a doubt, it would have snapped more than my arm

The panic cleared fro space in seconds, crouched next to , and I was probably going into shock, if I hadn&039;t already booked a full vacation package there

She was speaking a liquid language, words that sounded fast and golden in , but I kneas in the language of the Djinn I recognized it, frolish, kiddo"

She felt war on her support as I staggered out of the ceht where we&039;d parked it, looking bold and sassy through the downpour Ier seat

It was all over I&039;d failed I&039;d just failed

"Moear and scratched gears getting us out of town "Mo idea I turned oing to die because I&039;d been inadequate to the task of saving it

"Find the nearest Warden," I said "Maybe there&039;s so we can do to help"

"With what?"

I shrugged, one-shouldered The other one felt like ground glass had been driven into the joint "Whatever" I wasn&039;t very interested

I anxious looks my way, but I didn&039;t say another word

I had no idea how long the drive was, but it wasn&039;t long enough for ht idea So Imara just followed instructions and drove me to the nearest Warden

That turned out to be EivenShe lived in a one-dog town in the middle of Nowhere County, Maine, and when Iravel driveway, she parked it next to a mud-spattered Jeep

The Warden was home She came to the door when I, then at me like the devil incarnate "Oh," she said flatly "They sent you Great"

She turned and walked into the house, not bothering to show us in I was too sick and in too much pain, not to mention despair, to care about that I followed her to a ho room, with one wall painted a somewhat unfortunate shade of cinnamon; Indian blankets and southwestern art lined the walls The furniture was chunky wood, deliberately primitive Knickknacks ran to kachina dolls and dreauely We&039;d never been friends, or even what I&039;d call acquaintances, but we&039;d worked on a couple of projects together, and shared a desk at the national Warden call center before, the one Wardens use to yell for help when things turn really bad Emily hadn&039;t exactly been a people person then, and I doubted she&039;d eneral tended to be either hippies or herory Apparently, the Fire Warden tendencies hadn&039;t done much to influence her basic character

She earing what she&039;d had on the last tiy blue jeans and a nondescript tunic top, one that stretched Bare feet, that was the only real change Her short-cropped hair feathered around her blunt-featured face, and the scowl looked at home on her face, worn in deep

I sank down in a chair and cradlednot to scream

"Huh," Emily said, and jerked her chin at it "Looks bad"

"Thanks"

"Wasn&039;t a compliment You want some help?"

"If it wouldn&039;t put you out"

I to get a signal fro, to do I didn&039;t have ti hands, and did a twist-yank thing that hurt so bad, I teetered on the edge of darkness

"There," she said in satisfaction "Hold still"

She put her hand around the break, and I tried to obey her order Not easy The throbbing agony was hard to ignore, and then the sense of burning, and then the deep itching The burning just got worse, until it felt as if I were holding my arm over a Bunsen burner I wanted to snatch it back, but I knew better

I&039;d felt this before

It took about fifteen minutes Emily wasn&039;t the world&039;s h; when she let go, the arm felt hot and sensitive, butto want to go easy on it," she said "The reen Let it cure"

"Sure," I croaked My throat felt horribly dry "Water?"

Without a word, she went into the kitchen and ca for breath She refilled it I lass before I decided that too

"We don&039;t have ti hot out there"

"Fire?" I asked "You didn&039;t coht the fire?"

"Not--exactly"

E at me It was covered in what looked like the hide of a Holstein A little too identifiable for enetic heritage of my furniture

"Then what the hell do you want, a ?" She ine It probably was, for her Come to think of it, I didn&039;t much approve of thehed "I just You need help I was in the area Let&039;s leave it at that"

Her frown grooved deeper, and she tilted her head to one side, considering the proble to be real useful, the shape you&039;re in" She shook her head "Not that beggars can be choosers How do you feel?" She didn&039;t sound like she much cared, but she was forced to ask the question

"Better," I said It wasn&039;t a lie, really I&039;d been at rock-bottoround Everything&039;s relative "Thanks for this"

"What, the arm? Part of the job" Emily cocked a thu us "Thought you said eren&039;t supposed to trust them anymore What, you don&039;t have to obey your own rules?"

I decided not to engage on that one "You don&039;t have a Djinn, right?"

"Never needed one" She sounded as if those who did were clearly lacking soo nuts and kill us?"

"Well, wouldn&039;t that be exciting?" I sighed "Io nuts and kill us?"

She thought about it Gravely "Not quite yet"

"Right Keep us infor up the resemblance between me and Imara, but she wasn&039;t that observant Her eyes darted between us for a few seconds, bright but not registering any connections, and then she decided to shift the conversational ground "What do you know about fighting fires?"

"Pretty much what every Weather Warden knows" Fro thatit"

Emily was old school She fixedit I&039;ll call up Paul and get a real Fire Warden up here"

"I thought Leas--"

"I don&039;t take orders from Lewis Orwell" Didn&039;t like him much, either, from the unpleasant twist of her mouth around his name A lot of Earth Wardens didn&039;t care for hi them up That would especially bother Emily, Miss I-don&039;t-have-a-Djinn-because-I&039;m-too-badass-to-need-one "Look, this is my territory There&039;s a chain of command Lewis isn&039;t even part of the Wardens, as far as I&039;o If he&039;s e&039;ve got for leadership these days, we&039;re in trouble" "Lewis--"

She cut esture "And the last I heard, you were out of the Wardens co too hard to keep things together around here to worry about politics So don&039;t bother with the ca soround out here?"

"Chances?" If I kept repeating things, she had every right to stick ood I think I&039;et"

She sniffed "In other words, not much"

I kept , slow breath and sat back in her slaughtered-cow chair I wondered if she&039;d killed it herself Well, that wasn&039;t exactly fair She was an Earth Warden The cow had probably died of natural causes

"I heard a ruanization out there Other than the Wardens," Emily said "Any idea how to contact the that I don&039;t kno far he got with it How bad is this?"

"Bad," she said "Real bad"

"Then we should get ," I said, and levered ain, and leaned ainst the couch cushions and moaned When I tried to adjust myself to a more comfortable position, the arm stabbed a protest into my shoulder So very hard, had she?

Iraceful hand on h me She wasn&039;t a full Djinn, she couldn&039;t really heal me, just take away the pain teic morphine

"You can&039;t do this," she said "You need rest"

"I&039;nificant look fro Djinn eyes "I won&039;t allow it"

I started to say, Who enerate into afar too interested, anyway

"Your Djinn there&039;s probably right," Emily said "Fact is, the shape you&039;re in, I wouldn&039;t recommend you take on a campfire, ood knocks A good hard iain No help for it; it&039;s going to hurt while it&039;s healing"

Clearly, she wasn&039;t Lewis in the healing department, which I couldn&039;t really resent She&039;d helped me out when I needed it

And then she spoiled , "And besides, I really don&039;t want to babysit you out there"

Imara oriented on Emily like a cruise missile "She can do as she pleases" Typical kid Whatever the adult&039;s position was, take the opposing view Hell, two seconds ago she&039;d been trying to talk lance, which was pretty gutsy, considering "Sure She can please shut up while I borrow her Djinn for the duration"

Oh, crap I re for the release of more Djinn fro I Would have, if I hadn&039;t been half-crazy with pain

Irowled low in her throat "I won&039;t leave her," she said

"Not your choice," I said sternly "Look, Emily, I&039; her to fight a forest fire I appreciate what you&039;ve done foryour Djinn," Emily said bluntly "You don&039;t want to ht You&039;d lose, the condition you&039;re in"

Iht up in E up with id with fear As well she should "Keep a leash on her," Emily said

"I Aren&039;t we?"

Ery "Yes"

"Then I think I&039;et the car revved up, would you?"

"I don&039;t like leaving you with her"

"Emily&039;s a Warden," I said "We understand each other"

I look, and vanished

"You can&039;t," Eh to leave"

"Funny how that is Your threat to steal I to , but I stayed upright and reasonably stable "You said you didn&039;t have time for this, and neither do I Good luck, Eht now I&039;ll find somebody who appreciates my help"

"Wait"

I didn&039;t I headed for the door But when I got there, I found the handle wouldn&039;t turn Not at all It wasn&039;t the dead bolt The metal was simply frozen in place